For today’s episode of Dark Souls Dissected we’re taking a close look at the prototype / test maps to see how the game’s design evolved from an earlier stage of development. Dead ends are brought into context as cut paths, and we see some insight into how FromSoftware thought about putting the world together.
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0:00 Introduction
0:43 Proto Blighttown
8:16 Quelaag’s Domain & The Demon Ruins
18:06 Old Londo Ruins
33:56 Firelink Shrine & Loose Ends
37:45 Closing Words
Special thanks to KingBore and Samuel Diamond for the usual troubleshooting, you can find their videos here:
Lost Izalith Swamp – DS1 Cut Content:
Secrets of the Sunlight Altar – Dark Souls:
47 Comments
what do the colours mean on the prototype map? the greens blues and pinks
That last unknown map IMMEDIATELY gave me tomb of the giants vibes somehow, so a hunch tells me there might be somethijt worth checking
Someone should make a patch that adds these paths back in
The Last map looked like a more open Catacombs of sorts, hard to say by just watching it for a second :O
Damn! I've got hundreds of hours in DS1 by now, and I never realized that you could just jump to the abyss-entrance from the broken stair -.-
The brief X-Men theme made me chuckle, I wonder if the devs might have been fans.
3:38 Please no
Love to see some more casual, unscripted stuff.
Thanks for the analysis.
Nearly 400 hours in this game and I have never kicked down that ladder in New Londo Ruins, made that gap jump down the staircase outside of the ghost house, or used that drop-path to Four Kings. I love this game
All i can say about this video is that it is well…..Neeto!!!!
If this game ever ends up getting a proper remake – Bluepoint or no – I would absolutely love if they put some creative flourishes on it. Make the world even more interconnected, fix up Lost Izalith, whatever. We already have Dark Souls and its remaster – we've played that game. I'm in for a twist on it. Great video as always! And I'm definitely down for more behind the scenes minutia no matter how trivial it might seem.
I've been playing this game a year or so after it came out, and now I play Dark Souls to relax.
YouTube content creators absolutely cannot go wrong with more Dark Souls stuff. We'll watch anything, anything at all, that has to do with this masterpiece.
The room with the box that you said could have been a boss arena, reminds me of royal rat vanguard in dark souls 2. In fact much of the prototype gameof DS1 looks eerily like dark souls 2 environments. What i mean by that is, when they made dark souls 2, its as if it was a prototype world… like a halo forge level! Think the textures are actually better than DS2 in this DS1 prototype.
Love the vid, I know it's a little off topic, but I would love to know the various background music used in this video. Thanks again for great content.
would be cool if you went to blighttown before depths you could go down that hole or something and fight an altered version of gaping dragons fight
I personally believe the prototype star is supposed to be a teleporter, perhaps the one in quelaags domain is there as a return portal or a broken one. But the other two are close enough to eachother to see but too far to jump and no real way across.
But thats just my 2 cents.
ANOTHER BANGER
a easier way from blighttown to firelink shrine would have been great i think it could have been put behind the crestfallen warrior
The blocky characters are very likely to be for scale reference, I've had some very minor and not serious experience with level design, and it can be VERY easy to lose a sense of scale when you're really deep into making the level.
I further I watch into this, the more I realize how well they utilized their shortcomings. A lot of cut parts of the level still exist, but as broken paths or dead ends. Maybe it wouldn't be too wild to speculate that there's an even bigger "lore design" that they're reading off of to make the initial parts of the level, then destroying to make the world seem like a kingdom fallen from grace.
5:03 Another thing that makes this great in the end… I'm pretty sure none of us jumped down that pit AND opened up the chest without feeling very vulnerable.
There's even a bonfire right there! Surely something really nasty is gonna jump out. If they ever do a REALLY extensive remake, I'd love to see them go for a LoS: Second Quest type of route, of course with their attention to detail and consistency. There could be all new tech to utilize and map section to go along with it, let's say you jump down, open the chest, and a huge beast just barrels through that gate. You're not getting out of there before it's dead, you can't even pass by without getting grabbed from the edge, but if you do, there's a new area.
It's that fear the game instilled in me with Hellkite, I saw it and made sure to be wary of context clues, especially in open spaces with easy access for drakes. I was careful, saw how exposed it was, saw the scorch marks,, looked at my soul count, and succesfully baited Hellkite. And infamous moment that was less than satisfying for many, but it worked out great for the narrative of my 1st playthrough.
What if the thing at 11:16 is some early prototype bonfire
Wish i could go back in time and just give millions to game developers making my favorite games
i swear… i saw this video before explaining the same thing…. but like, years ago.. am I from an alternate universe?
call me dumb but i never paid attention to the fact that there is no bonfire in new londo
that explains why that area is so tough and outstanding to me
I feel like some of there unused hallways and dead ends, especially in Blight Town, add to the overall believability and expansive feeling of the area. It makes the layout of the area feel less "video-gamey", if that makes sense…
21:00 john darksoul actually is kinda creepy here
King's Field 4 background music ? Have a like .
Not knowledgable on this or anything but those star shapes you found everywhere in the super old prototype map feel like they would be bonfires. Or whatever they thought then. Basically just a "We will sit here and our hp will recharge". Save point, if you will.
Dam no wonder the later games arent as interconnected. This stuff looks like its a real pain to implement.
Minute 7:23 starts KINGS Field IV music
Game developer here. Can confirm that John Darksouls is there to help the level designers out with scale. They aren't stationary though, as we tend to drag them around as we work to ensure everything is consistent.
would be intresting to see a mod that remakes the game with fleshed out verstions of the concept maps.
I love these videos so much!
Very good investigation. I am guessing that a lot of work went into editing all of this and making the comparisons between final game and prototypes. Thank you, good to get a few answers after playing the game for so long. Great job and thanks for sharing 🙂
The structure at 16:40 looks like a throne, maybe the demon firesage was supposed to be there instead of being thrown in a random room like in the completed game, its model is in some other rooms for scaling so the actual boss itself was already made, maybe he had a more important role as a mandatory boss in early development or maybe they just gave it a throne to show its importance/power in the history of izalith as the first demon
Your commitment to this series is commendable, to say the least. Keep up the good work!
Your work is absolutely fascinating, Thanks!!!!
I hope Blue Point stays away from Dark Souls after not making the land of giants accessible in the Demons Souls remake
Honestly, the only times I see cut content as "intended content" is some of Dark Souls 2 and the chalice dungeons from Bloodborne. The closest I'd see from DkS1 would be Izalith, but I don't know how far you'd go to 'repair' it. While most Fromsoft games have evidence of late changes and cut content, they don't typically feel broken or unfinished.
About the gears and the weird device in Darkroot and in Quelaag's lair. Maybe fromsoft wanted mechanical devices (sometimes powered by magic) to have a bigger presence in terms of not only elevators and gates but also contain some puzzle elements (like with the shinobi prosthetic in Sekiro and Malenia's prosthetics)? It seems likely to me, given what I've seen in footage from King's Field and Demon's Souls gameplays.
Honestly I prefer the idea of the kiln being a smaller building with some magic shit going on making it like the TARDIS over being swallowed by Frampt and puked back out in the basement
Illusory Wall Ahead
the cool thing about these cut off or early designs is. only the people whom design these area able to see the full pic of it.
My anus disinfected while watching this dissected clip.
A common thing in old PS1 game development, at least iteratively developed games, was to place compasses or npc stand-ins facing the intended progression direction of the player. Sort of a "we don't know how, but this player is going to go That Way", which could explain the mannequins in New Old New London City
I firmly believe that the original intent was to create a path for Frodo and Sam to get to Mordor. Ceaseless discharge is what happened when Gollum dropped the ring. I have no evidence, but no doubts either.